MultiFarm

All possible sizes and some possible materials for the MultiFarm's main structure.

The MultiFarm is a multi-block structure added by Forestry, used to automate many forms of farming. These structures are larger and more complicated than the older Forestry farms, which the MultiFarm replaces. MultiFarms require a constant supply of Fertilizer, MJ, and water to run.

Contents

The MultiFarm is one of the largest multi-block structures in FTB. All versions of the MultiFarm are 4 blocks tall. It can be built in 3x3, 3x4, 4x4, and 5x5 variants, each of which provides increasingly large amounts of crop spaces for the farm to grow in. Future versions will also include a 4x5 variant. In addition to the structure itself, which must be composed of the component blocks, the farm also requires a surface to place its crops on which must be built out of any of the Base Materials.

The second row from the top must be composed of Farm Blocks. The rest of the structure may be made up of any of the component blocks. Unlike other multi block structures, even the interior of the MultiFarm needs to filled with Farm Blocks.

Once the primary structure itself is built, the MultiFarm needs a surface to place the crops it grows on. This can be made out of any of the base materials. Once this is placed, and the MultiFarm is operational, it will place its farm in a diamond pattern on this surface. The surface can be placed level with any of the levels of the MultiFarm, or it can be placed one block below the bottom level, but it cannot be placed above the MultiFarm.

Multiple layers of these blocks may be placed if you are growing 1 or 2 block tall crops like wheat, potatoes, carrots, or netherwart.

Note: Farm Sizes
The representations above show the largest extent of the Farm for each setup. You can lay out smaller extents of farmland, but the Farm won't be as efficient.

You will also need to lay out the area for the farmland, using any of the Base Material blocks.

The farmland can be laid out at any level (comparative to the Farm's structure), this means that you can place the farmland directly below the Farm Structure, aligned with any level of its 4-tall structure, etc.
You cannot lay the farmland directly on top of the Farm's structure, though.

Setup (Side Representation)

Valid?

Yes, for any of these.

No, invalid setup.

The table above is a side representation of both valid and invalid setups, regarding where you can place your farmland.
Although they represent 3×3 setups, the concept is the same for the remaining sizes.

To configure a farm to grow and harvest crops other than trees you need to make an Intricate Circuit Board in a Carpenter and one of each appropriate Electron Tube in the Thermionic Fabricator. The multifarm is broken up into four sections, each of which can be programmed independently by placing the appropriate electron tube in the correct location on the circuit board. From top to bottom the four slots on the Circuit Board will program the North, South, West, and East sections. The farm has two possible modes, Managed and Unmanaged. Managed farms will plant the substrate (dirt for example) and seeds/saplings for you automatically. Unmanaged farms do not, you must place the substrate and seeds by hand, although the farm will harvest the appropriate resources. Farms must be entirely one mode or the other, you cannot mix managed and unmanaged sections. You choose the mode in the Soldering Iron GUI, using the left and right arrows on the top before placing the tubes or circuit board.

The corner bricks on a multifarm are assigned to the respective east and west sides, making those sections considerably larger than the north and south sides, especially on the 3x5 farm.

An example farm with all four sections configured differently. North is up.

The GUI for that farm, showing the four sections.

The Circuit Board for that farm, showing the tube locations in relation to each section.

There are two overall types of farm that can be created: Managed and Manual. Both are created through using a Soldering Iron on an Intricate Circuit Board, and adding in electron tubes for the type of farm required.

This orientation is important, because the size of the sections varies with the placing on the farm, especially in farm setups that are not square (for example, a 3×5 setup).
The N, S, W and E represent, respectively, North, South, West and East.

After version 2.0.0.8 for the simplest set up "Arboretum" put Dirt as a substrate, Humus does not work.

"Arboretum" Mode appears to recognize rubber trees only as regular trees. It will plant the saplings and chop them down but will not harvest any sticky resin. (good for collecting more saplings and rubber wood which can then be extracted into rubber, however, to gain the most amount of saplings, restrict the locations of where they're able to be planted for the most amount of leaves without crowding other trees too much, otherwise you'll run out of saplings)

You cannot attach an Item Tesseract to the bottom of the Farm Hatch, you first need to attach a pipe, and then the Tesseract. Tesseracts can be directly attached to the Farm Valve and Farm Gearbox though.

Note:
RedPower 2 Tubes behave differently than Buildcraft Pipes! This is not a bug.

Fertilizer is added from the west side, soil from the north, and seeds/saplings from the top. Items are extracted from the bottom.

Will display the "No Farmland" error if there is a Farm Control block installed and is also powered by redstone during initialization.